A January count of the homeless in San Diego County found 8,900 people in shelters, in vehicles or on the street -- a 7.7 percent drop from the previous year.

Despite that decrease, the number of homeless people countywide still is 4.5 percent higher than it was in 2010, said Dolores Diaz, executive director of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless.

The task force announced its annual report on homelessness Thursday morning at Veterans Village of San Diego. The numbers were collected by about 900 volunteers who canvassed the county.

Those volunteers drove and walked in the rainy, predawn hours on Jan. 25 to count people on the streets or in cars, while head counts were taken at winter shelters and other places that provide temporary housing.

There were 4,574 people without shelter on that day, a 13.2 percent decrease from the previous year's tally, according to the new report. The number of people living in temporary housing was 4,326, a 1 percent decrease from last year's total.

Rain during this year’s made the survey more challenging, but the act of accurately counting people huddled in store fronts, cars and other secluded places has always been an imprecise science.

“It’s not an exact number,” Diaz said Thursday morning. “We will never know the exact number of homeless in San Diego.”

Of the 8,900 counted in this year’s report, 5,747 of them -- or 64.6 percent -- were in the city of San Diego.

Inland North County’s 1,042 homeless people was the second largest population, with 11.7 percent of the total.

Coastal North County had 747 people for 8.4 percent, South County had 715 people for 8 percent and East County had 649 people for 7.3 percent.

Among cities with sizable populations of the homeless, Escondido was second behind San Diego with 536, including 364 in shelters. Oceanside was third with 499 homeless people, including 317 in shelters.

Chula Vista had 495 homeless people, including 194 in shelters. Vista had 443, including 325 in shelters, and El Cajon had 434 homeless people, including 333 in shelters.